August 2018

New Music Predictions: Timo Andres

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

In a world of music where we are so often looking back into the past, Carnegie Hall’s 125th anniversary celebrations send a clear message about the importance of looking forward, particularly when it comes to programming. To mark each of the years since it first opened its doors in 1891, Carnegie Hall has commissioned 125 new works to be premiered throughout the 2015–2020 seasons.

So where do we expect this new music to go? This question was put to both established and emerging composers who have recently been commissioned by Carnegie Hall.

I think it’s a mistake to try and predict the future of any art form, and luckily, it’s not really that important. Music is more than a collection of trends to chart, and it’s not technological progress—New Music 2.0 isn’t coming along next year. It’s taken as gospel now that a young composer can choose to write in any style he or she wants, that “anything goes.” I think the truth is a bit more complicated than that. Aesthetic parameters are still quite rigidly defined, it’s just that there are more aesthetics to choose from, and commissions and performances seem to be distributed among them more equally than they were 10 or 15 years ago. There’s more than enough room in “New Music” to embrace the singer-songwriters, the electronic noise improvisers, the graphic-score conceptualists, and the heavy metal drummers, and that can only be a Good Thing.